So long 2020! Bonjour from Paris. It’s good to see you again. I need to make a confession: In spite of the accounts I shared about the France lockdowns, I have not hated all of 2020. A friend who knows me well once commented I was “a pragmatist walking on the sunny side of the…
My life in Paris has never been boring. In a way, it has not slowed down since I relocated to France in March 2019. The fall has been no exception: I moved and settled into a new home, just before the Paris lockdown 2.0 got enforced. My life in Paris: Au revoir, “the 7th Heaven“…
I just treated myself to a special day at the Luxembourg gardens. Le Luxembourg, (once referred to as “le Lucco” by locals,) remains a beloved Parisian park. Tourist crowds may flock to this special green space in the heart of Paris’s Left Bank, (or at least used to, in pre-Covid19 days,) generations of Parisiens have…
By the Seine is where I often find myself after I have been away from Paris for a while. I like how peaceful life seems to be along “les quais,” (the riverbanks,) away from the sound of traffic and the big commotion above my head, as I sit or stroll by the water. Since Paris…
When you have been confined in 265 square feet with no social interaction for several months, you want that first weekend out of town to be a special one. I was lucky: More than 100 days after my last adventure (a birthday celebration in Bourges,) I headed out to meet a friend north of Paris.…
In confined Paris, week 5 is wrapping up. Are we there yet? No, not yet. Not even close. A tentative date for le déconfinement (the end of the lockdown) has been set to May 11. People around me, in social media mostly, seem to think that on May 11, all of Paris will rush outside,…
Paris Lockdown: parameters Week 2 of le confinement (it always sounds so much better in French!) is wrapping up. My life, these days, is much smaller: Hours go by within a few blocks in a quiet, (too quiet) neighborhood in the French capital’s outskirts. I used to show tour groups and visitors around the city…
Chez Monoprix Chez Monoprix is where the Tough Get Going when the Going Gets Tough. On a gloomy March morning, as France seemed to have come to a standstill and was holding its breath expecting more bad news later in the day, I was not surprised to see several neighbors of mine at our local…
Paris as I live it Another week in Paris has just wrapped up. The French capital has been testing us all for the last few weeks during the longest public transportation strike the city has experienced in decades. The strike is also impacting other cities, other regions, but few depend on public transportation as much…
A walk in Montmartre: Of course, it’s a good idea! A walk in Montmartre, day or night, never disappoints, or does it? As one of the most visited, touristy areas in Paris, Montmartre gets a lot of bad press. Some guidebooks even discourage their readers from visiting because it is “out of the way,” “packed…